To the outside world, it seems a bit ridiculous. Write-in voting is simply unheard of across most of the rest of the world.
“Imagine an election when you could vote for anyone you wanted. In parts of America, you can — simply by writing a name on the ballot paper,” began one BBC article from 2016.
The implication: Look at these goofy Americans!
For the first time in a long time, however, Utah has a relevant write-in candidate in a statewide race: Phil Lyman. The Utah House representative from Blanding, Lyman lost the Republican gubernatorial primary against sitting Gov. Spencer Cox, but is back for more, running in the November election as an unaffiliated write-in candidate. In a highly unexpected move, Lyman even teamed up with the Democratic nominee, Rep. Brian King, for a campaign ad, begging voters not to pick Cox on their ballot.
It all got me wondering: Is there any successful precedent for what Lyman is doing? Could he meaningfully change the race, or even win, by asking voters to write in his name?
It turns out that there isn’t any compendium of write-in candidates and their results throughout history, so unfortunately, this column isn’t going to be giving you Lyman’s mathematical odds of pulling the upset. What it will do, though, is deliver fun facts I didn’t know about the write-in rules, a list of currently eligible write-in candidates, and a huge number of fun write-in anecdotes.
Utah’s write-in candidates
While write-in voting is a uniquely American tradition, six states don’t allow write-in votes at all: Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Most of the others, meanwhile, aren’t totally open — 33 states, including Utah, require write-in hopefuls to register their candidacy with the state in order to have their votes counted. Some states have different rules for presidential elections than for state offices.
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
In Utah, there’s also a write-in fee that candidates have to pay: $500 to run for president, $964.50 for governor, and $1,355 for senator. Registration has to be in by Sept. 3 by 5 p.m; this article comes just in the knick of time if you want to throw your hat in the ring.
At this date, there are nine eligible write-in candidates in Utah: six for U.S. president, two for Utah governor, and one for the Utah Senate. They are:
• Jay J. Bowman and De. D. Bowman for president and vice president. Not a lot of information about the Bowmans, but on the registration form, the former said he lives in Florence, Ken., while the latter lives West Valley City, Utah.
• Shondra Yevette Irving for president. No real information online, other than Irving is from Texas.
• Steve M. Johnson for president. Johnson lives in Springdale, Utah, but I couldn’t find other information online.
• Andre Ramon McNeil for president. From St. Louis, his campaign actually does have a website. McNeil writes he is “politicking for the best health care, the best housing, the best education, the best transportation, and the best drinking water.”
• Future Madam Potus for president. She’s from Anchorage, Alaska, but I couldn’t find other information online. A woman with the same phone number ran for mayor of Fairbanks in 2021, but under a different name.
• Buddie Arden Wilkerson for president. He’s from Myton, Utah, population 560, in Duchesne County. Couldn’t find any other information about his candidacy online.
• Charlie Tautuaa and Sylvia Miera Fisk for Utah governor and Lt. governor. Tautuaa is from Lehi, and his LinkedIn says he’s about “dreaming big and daring to fail” — and you have to respect that. His campaign’s Facebook page has 750 followers, and has recently supported fireworks etiquette laws, lower taxes, and limits on career politicians.
• Phil Lyman and Natalie Clawson for Utah governor and Lt. governor. Most of you know Lyman by now, but he joined the Utah House in 2019 after spending 2011-2018 as a San Juan County Commissioner. Clawson, meanwhile, is from Highland, and is a lawyer who worked for BYU’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies. She advocated for the Secure Vote Utah initiative.
• Laird Fetzer Hamblin for U.S. Senate. Hamblin resides in Roosevelt, and his website is pretty comprehensive. It indicates he supports health care for all, election reform, environmental action, and more.
When people vote for these candidates, Utah is a “voter-intent” state, which means that those counting the ballots are instructed to use their best judgment in guessing who a voter was voting for when interpreting write-in penmanship.
For example, writing “Lyman,” “Phil Lyman,” or even a “Lymen” would all likely count toward the candidate. If, on a paper ballot, someone has filled in a bubble for a candidate printed on the ballot and then written in someone else, election officials are instructed to count the write-in vote.
Do write-in candidates ever make an impact?
Rarely.
For example, in the 2020 election, there were 612 total votes for the eligible write-in candidates in Utah for the presidential race, compared to 865,140 votes for Donald Trump. The write-in vote made up about 0.03% of the total. The write-in candidates fared little better in the House races that year, getting a maximum 0.07%.
In fact, no write-in candidate has ever garnered more than 2.12% in a presidential race in a single state. That record belongs to Ralph Nader, who was on the ballot in most states in 2000, but was a write-in candidate in Wyoming.
In smaller races, though, write-in candidates can have a chance.
Multiple write-in candidates have won in the case of death or removal of someone on the ballot. In 1980, Republican Joe Skeen was elected to Congress representing New Mexico, after the incumbent Harold Runnels died months before the election. In a more dramatic incident in the Tennessee Senate in 1998, Democrat Charlotte Burks won election to the office via write-in after her husband, Tommy, was assassinated by Republican challenger Byron Looper outside of the Burks’ farm. Looper was sentenced to life in prison, Charlotte Burks went on to represent her district for 17 years.
But there are more standard famous write-in wins for Lyman to take heart.
The most famous write-in victory in the last several decades comes from Alaska, where Sen. Lisa Murkowski retained her seat in 2010. Her story is similar to Lyman’s: She lost in the Republican primary to Joe Miller, but decided to run as a write-in candidate anyway. In the general election, she won comfortably over both Miller and the state’s Democratic candidate, Scott McAdams.
Idaho-born BYU attendee Ron Packard served for 18 years in the House of Representatives as a Republican from California. Packard finished second in the 1982 Republican primary, but decided to run as a write-in candidate anyway, sending a pencil with his name on it to every voter in his district. Despite splitting the vote with both the Republican primary winner and the Democratic candidate, Packard won in a 37/32/31 split.
The difference? Both Murkowski and Packard came from the middle of their party, selling themselves as the moderate candidate to vote for outside of the fringe winner of the primary. Both came from the middle of the race to appeal to both sides of a wider base in the general election. Lyman, on the other hand, is hoping his base from the rightmost side of the aisle delivers more in a November general than in a June primary.
Write-in candidates do more frequently win smaller races. In Utah, for example, retired teacher Janene Burton won a spot on the Santa Clara City Council with 1,267 write-in votes in 2023. Two years earlier, Mollie Halterman won the mayoral race in Parowan with 586 total votes.
What about impacting the race’s result? Could Lyman do that, swinging a plurality of gubernatorial votes to the Democrat, King?
There is a history in Utah of write-in candidates impacting smaller elections. 2017′s Provo mayoral race, for example, featured a spoiler write-in candidate — Odell Miner — who some felt changed the race between the two candidates printed on the ballot: Sherrie Hall Everest and Michelle Kaufusi. Kaufusi won, but the race was used by ranked-choice voting advocates as a negative example that eventually allowed Utah cities to experiment with the format.
But the math is tough for King. Not since Scott Matheson, Jr. in 2004 has a Democratic candidate for governor received even 33.3% of the vote, the proportion enough to make a split between two Republicans relevant to a race victory. In short, King would need huge numbers of Cox voters to defect as a result of Lyman, but not to Lyman directly.
It’s difficult to imagine, then, that Lyman’s write-in campaign makes an impact on the eventual winner of this race. But difficult to imagine doesn’t necessarily mean impossible — just very, very unlikely.
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